PUBLIC STATEMENT: HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!

Posted on: May 8th, 2014 by unidos

- PUBLIC STATEMENT: HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!

- NO BORDER AGENTS IN OUR HOSPITALS AND CLINICS

- FOR A SOLIDARITY CITY

(September 3, 2013) The Solidarity City campaign in Montreal calls on all Quebec hospitals and medical facilities to refuse access to agents of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Medical facilities should exist to offer quality and accessible health care, not to collaborate in the detention and deportation of migrants. All medical facilities in Quebec should be off-limits to border agents.

Last year, border agents similarly entered the emergency room of the Royal Victoria Hospital, despite opposition from medical personnel. There are also credible reports of more incidents.

The role of medical facilities is to provide the best care possible to patients, and the presence of CBSA agents disrupts that mission.

We make this public statement as part of an effort to build a Solidarity City in Montreal that rejects isolation and fear and aims to create networks of support and mutual aid, as neighbors, workers and members of a shared community,

We demand Health Care For All: meaning that no one should be refused health services as a result of their immigration status. We also support efforts to preserve and reinforce a universally accessible and publicly funded health care system.

More generally, everybody should have access to health care, education, social housing, food banks, unemployment benefits and any other social welfare regardless of immigration status. Labour norms and human rights should apply equally to all.

We ask that all medical facilities in Quebec, especially the Montreal-area, disallow the CBSA on their premises as an urgent matter of public policy and health.This callout is supported by the following organizations and individuals working in the health care sector in Quebec: